-------------------------
Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the Oct. 30, 1997
issue of Workers World newspaper
-------------------------

Applause for film on Haitian 'Rezistans'

By Pat Chin
New York

The Haiti Support Network’s premiere showing of the film "Rezistans" played to a packed house at the Florence Gould Hall here Oct. 16. The sold-out activity was organized by the New York-based HSN to raise funds for the National Popular Assembly (APN), one of Haiti’s oldest and biggest grassroots anti-imperialist organizations.

Maude LeBlanc, a co-founder of HSN, hosted the program. LeBlanc, a longtime activist in the Haiti liberation movement, welcomed the crowd and recognized several people in the audience.

They included Haitian Poet Laureate Felix Morisseau-Leroy, who is interviewed in "Rezistans"; Cuban Ambassador to the United Nations Bruno Rodriguez; and First Secretary of the Cuban Mission to the UN Mario Medina. African American actor Danny Glover was also there.

Several unions showed solidarity by sending representatives. They were Health and Hospital Workers Local 1199, AFSCME District Councils 1707 and 37 and Local 215, Communications Workers Local 1180, Mail Handlers Local 300, Food and Commercial Workers Local 888, and two UNITE locals.

Ben Dupuy, an APN spokesperson and co-director of Haiti Progress newspaper, traced the Haitian people’s long history of resistance to exploitation and injustice, starting with the slave rebellions that led to Haiti’s independence in 1804. The Haitian leader talked about Cuban national hero Jose Marti, who sailed home to Cuba in 1885, leaving from Cap Haitien with a Haitian passport.

Dupuy introduced a special guest—former Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. Popularly elected as president of Haiti in 1990, Aristide was ousted in 1991 in a bloody U.S.-backed coup. He was in exile until 1994, when U.S. and UN troops occupied the country under the guise of defending his return to office.

Aristide lauded the work of the true friends of Haiti—like the HSN—and told the cheering crowd that "the resistance will continue."

‘We will make another 1804’

The greatest strength of "Rezistans," a documentary created by Katharine Kean of Crowing Rooster Arts, is that it is political. The film doesn’t just focus short-sightedly on the stark poverty in Haiti like many liberal works do. It is also, importantly, about the historical resistance to the takeover of Haiti by colonial and neocolonial class forces.

The documentary highlights the role of U.S. imperialism and capitalist exploitation in Haiti. It features Aristide’s landslide rise to power in 1990 backed by the Lavalas movement, and graphically shows the CIA’s cunning maneuvers to squeeze him out.

"Rezistans" exposes Washington’s hypocrisy in sending troops to Haiti under cover of the UN, supposedly to restore democracy. In fact, under the guise of being against repression and for human rights, the U.S. government was covertly arming the death squad Macoutes and other right-wing thugs who slaughtered some 5,000 people during the three-year coup d’etat.

Filmmaker Kean gets a lot of information in through the skillful use of film footage in a way that poignantly reflects the political consciousness of the Haitian people and their historical determination to resist oppression and exploitation.

Sequences in "Rezistans" show, for example, activists of the popular movement, their faces hidden behind bandanas, being interviewed.

"We will say it 10,000 times," says one of the masked Haitians. "The people can make another 1804.

"In 1804 we did it without any experience. The coup d’etat has given us a lot of experience. The coup has helped us to identify those who do not want us to arrive there."

Speaking of the impending landing of occupation troops, he adds: "The UN has wanted to occupy us for a long time, and we were occupied by the U.S. We want to finish with this. ...

"There is no difference whether it comes in the form of the UN or in the form of the Americans. It’s the same thing."

The response to the showing of "Rezistans" revealed a great reservoir of support for Haiti’s popular movement and Aristide. Thanks to the Haiti Support Network, the successful fund-raiser was also a significant political event, with which the progressive community in New York showed tremendous solidarity.

- END -

(Copyright Workers World Service: Permission to reprint granted if source is cited. For more information contact Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY,NY 10011; via e-mail: ww@workers.org. For subscription info send message to:info@workers.org. Web: http://www.workers.org)

Copyright © 1997 workers.org